State Requests Permission To Close Hospital

Review To Take At Least 90 Days

State mental health officials submitted an initial request Friday for another agency's permission to close Blue Hills Hospital -- the start of a review process that could take three to seven months.

The request asks that the Office of Health Care Access immediately begin the process to approve the closing of Hartford's only state-run alcohol- and drug-treatment center. The process takes at least 90, and as long as 210 days. It could include a public hearing.

The state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services announced last week that it planned to close Blue Hill by year's end and transfer some hospital services to private providers and state hospitals in the region. The department planned to start transfering Blue Hills' 118 employees to vacant jobs at Middletown's Connecticut Valley Hospital and other state hospitals in November.

But it wasn't until Friday that the department submitted the required request for permission. Now, because of the minimum 90-day wait for a decision, department officials aren't sure when employee transfers might begin. Meetings between department administrators and labor unions representing employees are scheduled for next week, said Robert Taylor, a spokesman for the mental health department.

State statutes say the health-care office must give its approval before any center terminates a service or substantially decreases its bed capacity. Blue Hills runs a 24-bed detoxification program and a 65-bed longer-term rehab program.

State officials have proposed shifting some of those beds to Cedarcrest Hospital in Newington and private agencies in the region, and reusing Blue Hills for client evaluation and as a group home for recovering substance abusers.

State officials have said their plan will allow some out-of-town clients to receive treatment at agencies closer to their homes. About 43 percent of the more than 2,000 clients Blue Hills serves a year live in Hartford.